<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/safe-drinking-water-atms-rural-entrepreneurs-india/>
"In Telangana, an arid south Indian state notorious for drought, a man swipes a
card at an ATM. Instead of cash, the machine doles out 20 liters of clean
drinking water. The ATM is housed in an iJal (My Water) station, run by
31-year-old Somarathi Sindhuja, a petite mother of two. When she set it up
seven years ago, she had not imagined that her seed money of Rs 2,00000 (just
under $2400 US) would help her create what she today calls her “public service
business,” which supplies clean drinking water within a two-mile radius of her
home in Warangal, Telangana’s second largest city.
Sindhuja is one of the 350 rural water entrepreneurs trained and supported
since 2017 by Safe Water Network (SWN), an American nonprofit founded in 2006
by the late actor and philanthropist Paul Newman and other civic leaders. The
entrepreneurs buy or provide the space for the water filtration equipment and
ATM, as well as the raw water. SWN provides them with the necessary training,
technical support and water treatment expertise. Using all this, they are able
to filter water to international safe drinking water standards and sell it for
the nominal sum of Rs 5 ($0.07 US) for 20 liters.
That’s an extremely good deal for the community: Typically the price for a
similar quantity of water, from a competing supplier like commercial tanker
owners, is at least double this amount; bottled water can go for as much as 10
times more. It’s a good deal for the entrepreneur, too. “I earn about Rs 15,000
to 20,000 (roughly $180 to $240 US) per month from this, which is amazing as
there are hardly any jobs available to women like me here,” Sindhuja says. “And
I’m also improving the lives of people in my neighborhood.”
Warangal is undeniably parched, and the water that most residents there can
easily access is not safe to drink. And it’s not alone in these challenges: Due
to depleting groundwater reserves, erratic rainfall and poor civic
infrastructure, an estimated 2.2 billion people across the globe were unable to
get safe drinking water in 2022. In India, thanks to the government’s ambitious
piped water scheme
Har Ghar Nal ka Jal (Water on Tap in Every Home), things
are looking up — but a lot more needs to be done.
“The piped water still needs to be filtered and treated before it can be
drunk,” says Poonam Sewak, SWN’s vice president for programs and partnerships,
pointing out that an estimated 63 million Indians lack access to safe drinking
water, and half of the country’s groundwater is contaminated with fluoride,
nitrate and heavy metals. The network’s iJal stations with attached water ATMs
offer high-tech and decentralized safe water access solutions in India and
Ghana."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
